Despite poor Guilala’s lack of popular appeal, the film that introduced him fascinates in its own right as an example of the craftsmanship of mid-century Japanese genre film. An unscientific survey of comments on YouTube suggests that The X From Outer Space is considered a “so bad it’s good” style cult film, but I find it a good deal more interesting and well-made than many of the later Godzilla films, which are mostly repetitive, “monster of the year” wrestling matches between two men in rubber suits. To be fair, perhaps Guilala would have suffered the same fate as his compatriots Godzilla and Gamera, had The X From Outer Space succeeded. After all, the first Godzilla film is probably the only masterpiece the kajiu eiga genre produced.

The X From Outer Space is only really a kaiju eiga in the second half of the film. The first half of the film is a “voyage through space” narrative, similar to something like Destination Moon (1950) or Rocketship X-M (1950). The crew of the AAB Gamma is dispatched to Mars to investigate the disappearance of previous expeditions, the cause of which, we are told “may be UFOs.” The ship’s crew is diverse, made up of both Japanese and Americans, and they are directed from Earth by Dr. Berman and Dr. Kato. In this respect, The X From Outer Space seems to emerge from the same Cold War liberal consensus as Star Trek, imagining space travel as a global, international venture undertaken for the benefit of humanity — though perhaps to attribute such sentiment to The X From Outer Space gives it the benefit of too much doubt.

Uniting our differences through technology

Our multi-ethic (or bi-ethnic) cast

AAB Gamma experiences a fairly standard set of space travel film complications — a threatening UFO which resembles a glowing pastry, an ill crewmember who endangers the others, and a brief pit stop at the international moon station, which sets in motion a lamely conceived love triangle between Capt. Sano, ship’s scientist Lisa, and Michiko, a staff member at the moon station who holds a torch for the good captain. The moon stop does provide a distraction for a kitsch-minded audience, however, as we get a full dose of the film’s mid-60s space age production design.

Threatened by a glowing pastry

Sweet swingin’ 60s moon base

After replacing the ill crew member, the AAB Gamma blasts back into space, and once again encounters the UFO, which this time deposits a sticky, weblike substance onto the ship, attaching a glowing orb which, we later learn, is an egg containing Guilala. The UFO has apparently mistaken the AAB Gamma for a mate. The crew of the ship removes the glowing orb, for science, and naturally return it to Earth for study. Predictably, the orb opens and Guilala escapes, grows to monstrous size at tremendous speed, and proceeds to attack power stations across Japan, feeding on the energy.

At this point, the film becomes less interesting than during the “voyage through space” first half. This is largely because the plot then follows the general formula of the kaiju eiga: Guilala threatens destroy a major urban area (as usual, Tokyo), the standard efforts of the military fail to cease his rampage, and the main characters stand around discussing said rampage until they discover a scientific way of destroying the monster. The mise-en-scene feels familiar as well: Guilala is clearly a man in a suit, smashing small model buildings, and matte shots allow the rubber terror to menace fleeing Japanese civilians. Still, the entire thing is charmingly lo-fi, and demonstrates a level of special effects craftsmanship entirely lost in the digital age. Perhaps my greater interest in the first half is a result of its leisurely pace and lack of urgency or clear direction, which enables a contemporary audience to appreciate the production design and effects.

Guilala menaces the good people of Japan through a matte shot

A man in a rubber suit wrecks a model city

My objection to calling The X From Outer Space merely a laughable B-movie is that clear care was put into making the film, even if it aspires to be no more than a standard genre offering. Consider the film’s repeated use of graphic matches. Although it’s not entirely clear whether the filmmakers intend for us to make a comparison in using the device, its repetition seems a clear indicator of an aesthetic sensibility at work. Finally, the soundtrack to the film is absolutely tremendous, featuring laidback, lounge-pop 60s music mixed with science fiction effects (sadly, no theremin, which fell out of popular use by this time), matching the film’s space-age optimism, though it does undercut the threat Guilala is supposed to represent. To be fair, he was never that threatening anyway.

The X From Outer Space is dated as hell, and never once reaches the poetry of the original Godzilla (though few films do). But it has enough idiosyncrasy to recommend it. I’ve read that a sequel was produced in 2008, but given the state of contemporary Japanese pop culture, I think I’ll skip it. I prefer the charm of the 60s incarnation.

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Adam Capitanio lives and works in New York City as an editor and educator. He’s happy to talk to you about any dimension of film art and culture.

Heck, I even watched the Mystery Science Theater Hour, which broke episodes up into two-part, 60-minute shows, and I made a trek to an out of town theater to see MST3K: the Movie (1996), which never received a wide release, because the distributor decided to spend its money promoting Barb Wire instead. Yeah.

But, for those uninformed, perhaps I should explain the show: A man (either Joel or Mike depending on the season) is trapped in outer space with his two robot buddies (Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot). The trio is forced to watch bad movies — and they make jokes during the process.

I savored the absurd, random humor, the silly genre films, and let’s be honest, the robot puppets were a draw as well. I spent many hours of my youth, and now of my adult years, watching and re-watching episodes. My collection of episodes on VHS, some taped off TV, traveled with me to college, and then to my post-college life.

Watching shows taped on TV in years past is always a fun walk down memory lane. Remember the collect calling craze of the late 1990s? Commercials with the likes of Carrot Top telling us which service to use are forever stored on my MST3K VHS collection.

Some may chide me for hanging on to such an outdated medium, but due to the nature of MST3K (which had to obtain the rights of the films they lampooned) not every episode is available for (legal) home viewing.

But then — enter Netflix.

Once I realized I could watch a great quantity of MST3K episodes via Netflix’s Watch Instant service, I was in heaven. I even noted this landmark event with the Internet equivalent of the town crier, Twitter, observing thus: “Episodes of MST3K are now available on Netflix Watch Instant. Clearing my schedule for the next month.”

If my teenage self could see me being able to watch a number of MST3K episodes on demand, without having to fast forward through collect calling commercials featuring Mr. T., he would scream with jealousy. But, after his bout of scream therapy, I would tell Teen Daniel to go and actually talk to a few girls (and to leave the MST3K baseball cap at home for a change).

But where to start when it comes to choosing your own MST3K adventure? I use the website Instant Watcher to find my titles, as Netflix’s search feature leaves something to be desired.

Here are a few favorites, in no particular order:

The Wild World of Batwoman: Buxom avengers in short-shorts and mini-skirts do battle with the vile Rat Fink. This film is pure exploitation cheese.

Eegah!: A giant caveman that time forgot terrorizes teens in dune buggies with stupid haircuts. Watch out for snakes!

Horrors of Spider Island: A plane full of leggy dancing girls, along with their sleazebag manager, crash land on an island full of spider puppets. Better still, the film is hilariously dubbed in English, and full of catfights.

Cave Dwellers: A shirtless Conan wannabe (the barbarian, not the comedian) fights his way across a land filled with swords, sorcery, and terrible fake mustaches.

Pod People: What happens when you throw together an animal obsessed child, a pop singer and his groupies, a group of egg poachers, and a few aliens? I have no idea, but it is called Pod People.

Final Sacrifice: One of my all-time favorites from the Sci-Fi Channel years. It is a tale of high adventure in the wild, uncharted forests of Canada. Lost cities, killer cults, hockey hair, and more. This episode introduced MST3K fans to the likes of denim encased Canadian adventurer, Zap Rowsdower.

By watching MST3K over and over, I developed a love of running gags, obscure pop-culture references, and a quick wit of my own—which I put to use as a writer, especially when I write for Lost Highway’s B-Movie Reviews.

So queue a few episodes, invite some friends over, and partake in the absurd hilarity that is Mystery Science Theater 3000.

—

Daniel J. Hogan is the Geek half of Ginger and the Geek. You can follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan

Visceral. Atmospheric. Grotesque. It’s a living nightmare.

Only 30 years old, director Tobe Hooper had announced himself as force to be reckoned with. The beginnings of a long and illustrious career had begun to take shape. 8 years later Hooper would work alongside one of the behemoths of the industry, Steven Spielberg, directing an original script by Spielberg himself. That was 1982 and the film was Poltergeist, another horror classic. The stars seemed to align for Hooper but in fact, Poltergeist would be the director’s death rattle.

Following Chainsaw, Tobe Hooper closed out the 70’s and rang in the 80’s with varying degrees of success. As a newbie to the Hollywood machine, he was finding his footing. His follow-up to Chainsaw entitled Eaten Alive was another low-budget exercise in backwoods horror but the production was racked with behind the scenes drama and Hooper was reportedly dismissed from the film before production ended. He rebounded nicely though with Salem’s Lot, a CBS mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s acclaimed vampire novel. It was a ratings smash (and damn creepy in its own right). His next flick, The Funhouse (1981), is atmospheric, suspenseful, and just outrageous enough; a great fit for Hooper’s offbeat sensibilities. The film was a mild success commercially.

And here we are at September 1981. Tobe Hooper had been picked by Steven Spielberg to helm Poltergeist. Spielberg had always wanted to do ghost story and would’ve directed it himself had he not been in pre-production on E.T. Both films were slated for a June 1982 release and Spielberg’s contract prevented him from directing both films concurrently. He would need a surrogate director. Enter Tobe Hooper: young, energetic, and talented. Believe it or not, Spielberg was a Chainsaw fan, but the Producer-Director relationship between Spielberg and Hooper was controversial. Spielberg had storyboarded the film, cast it, was on-set almost every day, and oversaw post production on his own. Rumors started swirling almost immediately that Hooper was nothing more than a “ghost” director that could help Spielberg duck the rules. It’s a plausible theory. Spielberg picks a talented but green (in terms of big-budget moviemaking) director that he can control. Spielberg himself seemed to claim that he was the driving force in the partnership:

“Tobe isn’t… a take-charge sort of guy. If a question was asked and an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I’d jump in and say what we could do. Tobe would nod agreement, and that become the process of collaboration.”

Curiously, a 10-minute “Making Of” special created to promote the film features plenty of interviews and on-set footage of Spielberg but Hooper is almost entirely absent. Cast and crew recollections differ somewhat as to how much participation Hooper had but one opinion is universal: Spielberg had final say. Upon Poltergeist’s release, controversy grew so much that Spielberg wrote an open letter to Hooper in The Hollywood Reporter apologizing for the bad press and thanking him for their “unique” relationship.

Hollywood wasn’t banging down Tobe Hooper’s door after Poltergeist’s successful release. You’d think that the director of the 8th highest grossing film of the year would get a few offers. You’d be wrong. Hollywood is a town of talkers. Word gets around. Hooper allegedly had a substance abuse problem at the time which likely led to his dismissal from The Dark and 1982’s killer snake opus, Venom. Some reports say that Hooper entered an in-patient rehab facility immediately following Poltergeist. Whatever the facts are, it would be 3 years before Tobe Hooper made another movie and his career never really recovered.

June 1985 saw the release of one of the decade’s most expensive movies: Lifeforce. A $25 million sci-fi epic about naked space vampires invading London by way of Haley’s Comet, it was the first in a 3-picture deal with Cannon Films, a prolific B-movie factory that kept Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris gainfully employed throughout the 80’s. The film performed miserably, despite its flashy special effects and gratuitous nudity. It’s one of the craziest movies of the 80’s, undeniably cheesy and irresistibly stupid, though commercial prospects should have been questioned well before production began. Invaders From Mars, a remake of the 50’s classic, was another big-budget failure for Hooper and Cannon, barely grossing $4 million in summer 1986. It’s not a bad film—it actually scared me as a kid—it’s just an unremarkable one. The one-two punch of those failures forced Hooper into directing the long-awaited sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, a film he initially intended only on producing. Armed with a budget of $4 million, Hooper delivered a grossly outrageous film. Reviews were mostly negative but Chainsaw 2 performed decently, grossing $8 million in August 1986. All in all, Hooper’s three picture deal with Cannon yielded $23 million in box office receipts on $41 million in budgets. Not so impressive. Chainsaw 2 would be the last time that Hooper would have a film in wide theatrical release. Hooper’s post-1986 career has been unremarkable. He’s bounced between television and direct-to-video movies with mostly dismal results.

I believe that Tobe Hooper has at least one more good movie in him. He’s not a bad director. There are some good movies in his filmography. The Funhouse and Lifeforce are two great examples and I suggest you seek them out. The tide also seems to have changed on Chainsaw 2 which has undergone a rediscovery of sorts over the last decade. I can’t wait to be able to look forward to a Tobe Hooper film again but as I write this I’m watching his The Toolbox Murders (2004) which I’d never seen before. Unfortunately, I think it’s safe to keep waiting. . .